


Steam Burns

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, i blame you jellybat, i keep using metric even though im american, the ending is kinda iffy but i needed to finish this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 00:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3749074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steam can rise up to temperatures of 570 degrees celsius, or 1058 fahrenheit. Although less common, burns from steam are more painful and far more damaging than burns from open flame.</p><p>This has been sitting in my drafts folder for over a year and a half so it's about time I wrapped it up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steam Burns

Mikasa was no stranger to the infirmary.

She'd been there countless times, numb to the patients' cries of pain as she made her way through the large white tent. It was particularly crowded after today's mission and more disorganized than usual. Moving from one end of the infirmary to the other meant weaving between harried nurses, bed-ridden patients, and their emotional supporters who sat beside with worried eyes and idle hands.

Mikasa was well acquainted with that last role, she knew bitterly, finding herself once again running laps from headquarters to the field hospital and back. She was headed to the former now, leaping staircases and sprinting down corridors but refusing to let herself feel exhaustion. If she had to pull the weight for all three of them today, she'd do it happily and without hesitation. They are all she has, and she would sooner see Sina fall before either of them died on her watch.

Eren wasn't given a cot with the other injured soldiers; the nurses had long since figured out that their time was better spent aiding people whose limbs didn't grow back. He had a separate room at headquarters where he could sleep it off. It looked oddly idyllic given it's purpose, with a window that filtered the sunlight a glassy, pale yellow, a desk with a chair tucked in a corner, and a bed with an old mattress just opposite. Peeking out from under its firmly creased sheets was the titan-shifter himself. His face still held the tell-tale marks of pulling out of his titan form; angry maroon and crimson streaks ran from Eren's closed eyes to his jaw. He was unconscious, neither a good nor a bad sign, though it troubled Mikasa that it left the possibility of him waking up while she was checking on Armin. She'd left the blond with Jean, both of them understanding the consequences if anything were to happen to him while she was gone. Although under any other circumstances she would've stayed by Eren's side, Armin needed her more today.

Mikasa set to work as quickly as possible, starting with his vitals. Heartbeat: a labored pace and quiet, but not scarily so. Breathing: slow, sleepy, steady. Temperature: Mikasa cringed. Hot. Burning, steaming hot, but that was expected.

The tray of first-aid tools sat undisturbed on the bedside table. She wrung out the soaked washcloth, wrapping it around her hand before dabbing at Eren's forehead. It was an absolutely meaningless task and Mikasa was painfully aware of it. The placebo of helping was nice, but little could be done while he was still unconscious. Eren needed rest, and she had other things to deal with, another person who needed more attention and more time than she could spare with semantics. Mikasa folded the damp rag over his forehead in a weak bid to return his temperature to normal, giving her brother a last grimace of worry before heading back outside.

\---

Armin was no stranger to the infirmary.

He'd spent more hours there than he'd liked, alternating between pacing, sulking, and sitting on Eren's bed while he and Mikasa waited for him to wake up. It was always Eren; Armin's injuries were among clumsy bruises and scrapes, at worst a concussion and some bleeding. On the rare occasions she needed it, Mikasa didn't like getting help from the official medics. Most often, Eren would set to it with pilfered supplies from the hospital and his limited knowledge of medicine begrudgingly learned from his father. So Armin found himself asking for the fortieth time, why was he the one here?

That was a dumb question. He was here because he couldn't move without setting waves of pain through his body. It was like someone had taken a torch to his chest, letting it burn into his skin and run down his arms before throwing a blanket over him to douse it. Except it hadn't fully worked, only slowly killing the flames. The hot coals were left to bore holes into his lungs and hissing embers to sink into his veins and run down into his heart. Everything was fire.

He hesitantly reopened his eyes, blinking away the yellow fringe of his bangs to clear his field of view. Jean did it for him, sweeping his hair off to the sides in awkward, delicate strokes. Mikasa stood above his shoulder with her scarf wound tighter around her neck than normal. They both had the same expression: brow creased upwards, wide-eyed but focused, mouths pressed into firm lines. Worried.

"How is everybody?" Armin asked cautiously.

Jean looked almost angered. "Care about yourself for once. Please. Believe it or not, you're the one with the worst injuries today."

The blond looked skeptical. "Eren was missing limbs."

"Which he's already replaced. You aren't going to regrow skin," Jean pointed out, and Mikasa flinched. Armin tried to sit up, and both jumped to push him down. They didn't have to; Armin screamed and was back in bed before he was two centimeters off the sheets.

"See!? You aren't mummified from the waist up for nothing!" Jean exclaimed.

Armin couldn't deny it. Layers of gauze, cotton, and tape wrapped him from his torso to his collarbones in precise, practiced loops. Both his arms were given the same treatment, running down from his shoulders to his forearms and wrists. There was even a patch on his left cheek that felt heavy on his face. Instead of replying, he simply frowned and kicked his legs, the seemingly only untouched part of his body. Jean gave a heartless chuckle and Mikasa lost a bit the tension in her face.

"It's true. You need to stay here," she said decisively, and it was over. Armin resigned himself to feeling useless once again, and was considering going back to sleep when he heard Eren's voice.

"ARMIN!"

\---

Eren was no stranger to the infirmary.

When he was younger, he was always getting in fights. His father would patch him up while his mother chewed him out with a stern face belied by her worried tone of voice. Three years later, the roles were taken up by Armin and Mikasa. Now, he didn't even know the names of the people who bandaged him because he was never conscious for it. He was grateful for their work, but sometimes he wished he didn't have to rely on them. Eren was getting a little bored of the smell of rubbing alcohol and the sight of the ceiling over his sickbed. _His_ sickbed, because he spent so much time in it he might as well write his name on it. Worse than the ceiling were his friends' faces whenever he regained consciousness. He knew the exact expressions each of them made. Sasha was happy from relief, Connie was firm, Krista was motherly, Jean was annoyed but still concerned, Armin was scared, and Mikasa was all of the above masked with a tight face. So it was admittedly a little odd when he woke up and the room was empty.

The damp rag on his forehead was undoubtedly his sister's doing. The door was slightly ajar, as if she'd meant to close it but hadn't quite finished the job. Otherwise the room was the same, with the desk in the corner and a sallow window across bathing it in yellow sun and a seemingly ever-present first aid kit. Eren resented how used it looked.

His head was clearer than his usual post-titan-form naps, though he still felt dizzy after sitting up. A wiggle of toes and flex of fingers had all limbs present and accounted for. He stretched, feeling the joints in his spine crack and the muscles in his back tense. Running one hand through his hair and the other against his cheek, he found that the red marks were still there. The nurses didn't let him out of his room until they were gone, but if Mikasa and Armin weren't here they probably weren't either.

Not a good sign.

They never held meetings so soon after missions, so maybe the two were outside. The stables and the infirmary tent were both likely spots. Pulling away the sheets and setting his bare feet to the cold floor, Eren slowly stood up, gripping the bedpost for balance. Rubbing his bleary eyes, the brunet sauntered to the door and peeked out, only to find the hallway eerily quiet. A few warning bells ran off in his head.

As he went downstairs, headquarters became increasingly populated, and it was hard to sneak out of a hospital room when his face looked like he had been clawed from his eyes to his chin. Keeping his head low as he took the back route, Eren slipped outside and into the sun. It was humid but not uncomfortably so, but the sudden brightness forced him to squint as he plodded his way to the big white tent. Even from afar it looked as crowded, with medics in white coats pushing around creaky wheeled carts full of gauze and antiseptics.Peering in between two sheets of canvas paneling, Eren caught sight of a red scarf a little ways in from the far side of the tent. The owner's shiny black hair made it undeniably his sister, though the man beside her was taller than Armin and didn't have long blond hair. They stood in front of a cot, talking to the patient that the titan shifter couldn't recognize from his blocked view. Stepping inside for a closer look, the brunet dodged an angered soldier before recognizing the person next to Mikasa as Jean. Confusion overrode annoyance, he got closer until he finally found that blond head of hair he'd been looking for.

The last time Eren had seen Armin was during the mission, after his titan form had began dissipating. He hadn't actually seen Armin as much as he'd heard his voice, yelling muffled words that he didn't really understand. Something had begun to heave him up under his arms only to immediately drop him. Eren was barely conscious then, but he knew now. It was Armin pulling him out of his titan form. And it was him screaming. Now it was him laying in the hospital and covered in bandages.

"ARMIN!" Eren yelled, and all three turned to face him. Barging through the infirmary, Eren skidded to his knees at the side of the bed, crawling and gripping at the sheets and breathing harshly. Mikasa and Jean were yelling at him but it was nothing but white noise in the back of his mind. Armin didn't move, just watched out of the corner of one lidded blue eye. Eren couldn't bring himself to make eye contact, spouting apologies for what he'd done.


End file.
